'We've never had a request like this,' said a local funeral director

Chris Wenzel, a tattoo artist in Saskatoon, died of heart failure last month. His wife Cheryl is having the tattoos that covered nearly his entire body preserved. (Cheryl Wenzel)

Some people put a photo of their departed loved ones above the living room fireplace. Others spread the deceased's ashes.

Saskatoon tattoo shop owner Cheryl Wenzel's late husband and business partner Chris left her with far more unconventional instructions.

"He wanted to have his tattoos removed and displayed to the whole world," said the 40-year-old widow. "He would always say, 'Why get all these hours of tattoos put into me [and] nobody can see them? Why get buried with them?'"

'We've never had a request like this'

The Wenzels were teenage sweethearts who stayed together for 23 years.

He was lead artist at the couple's Saskatoon business, Electric Underground Tattoo. She worked behind-the-scenes, taking appointments and serving as his second eye as he bent over his designs.

Cheryl Wenzel met her husband Chris when they were teenagers. Together they raised five kids. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)

The partnership came to an end last month when Chris, 41, died of heart failure. That left Cheryl to run the shop solo and handle his complicated post-death request.

"He had some really beautiful work," she said of the tattoos that stretched from his neck down to his lower legs.

There were the skulls on his hands, a Japanese warrior on his back and two hawks fighting a snake on his chest, to name just three of many.

Wenzel's chest featured a tattoo of two hawks fighting a snake. 'Hawk' was Wenzel's spirit name, said Cheryl. (Cheryl Wenzel)

Chris wanted all of them preserved.

Cheryl first had to find a funeral home that would play ball. Five places said no — "I don't blame them," she said — before a sixth, Mourning Glory Funeral Services, said it would allow the skin extractions to take place on its turf.

"We've never had a request like this," said funeral director Chelsea Krentz, adding that she knows of no similar procedure ever having happened at a Saskatchewan funeral home.

'I want all of 'em'

Cheryl also had to find a company to preserve the pieces of skin and prepare them for later display.